


Off-Piste

by Synthtraitor



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Reader Insert, Skiing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 15:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21358669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synthtraitor/pseuds/Synthtraitor
Summary: This is all that matters. And so you ski so fast that the stress from midterms and the weight of the last semester can’t possibly catch up.
Relationships: Inuzuka Kiba/Reader
Kudos: 22





	Off-Piste

You look at Kiba. You look at your final. 

You scribble a circle in the upper right corner. 

You look at Kiba. You bounce your knee. You look towards the window, at the ridge of white mountains cutting through the crisp sky. 

You look at your final and try to read through the questions again, but the words mush and swim in your brain. 

You look at the mountains. You look at Kiba. You look at the mountains. There’s a loud clicking sound as you set your pencil down on the desk, and then you push yourself up from your chair. Your movements are rushed and stiff as you make your way through the rows of desks to the front of the classroom and hand in your exam. You were never gonna get the last couple of questions anyways.

***

When you step out into the quiet hallway, the cold air hits you like a wall. Your statistics classroom is always stuffy and warm, and it makes you irritable during assessments, but the hallway is kept as frigid as it is outside, so without fail, leaving the class shocks you awake. 

You step to the side, drop your bag, then pull on your coat before squinting down either end of the hallway to check if your favourite overstuffed chairs, secluded and tucked under the nose of a wide window, are open. Kiba is still taking the midterm, so you’ll have to wait.

As you begin to pick your way towards the chairs, the soles of your boots squeak on the floor. The hallways are empty and echoey, and you’re uncomfortably aware of how quiet it is, of how it’s still ten minutes before class ends and twenty minutes before the next class begins.

The chairs are opposite the study tables that tend to fill between classes, and a handful of people are seated there already. A girl in a sweater has earphones on, another has a laptop with some sort of 3d modelling program running. You hear the faint echo of a piano from the music rooms down the hall.

Gripping the straps of your backpack, the mild anxiety and disappointment from the final follow you to the chairs. You don’t even want to think about exams anymore. You’re sick of them. 

This last one was the worst, your paper was crinkled and covered in marks after erasing as many times as you did, and the fact that you feel like you didn’t understand anything on the test wasn’t helping. 

Though you really don’t have room to complain because it’s obvious you really dropped the ball this quarter. Just over halfway through the year and the stress was eating you alive, pushing you to procrastinate more and more. At this point, you’re just treading water, trying to keep your gpa competitive for when you transfer. If you transfer. 

You slide your backpack off your shoulders and flop down onto the chair. After a moment of staring straight ahead, you lean forward and pull your phone out of your bag. When you click the home button, your screen lights up with notifications. Tenten is trying to convince both you and Lee to break from your apr **è** s-ski tradition of picking up take-out to go out for burgers in your group-chat. 

Like every weekend since the mountain opened for skiing, the three of you have spent a full Saturday on the slopes, and then gorged yourself on take-out in front of the TV. Lee and you are life-long ski/snowboarders, and Tenten started when she moved here a couple years ago. It’s what you bonded with her over initially, and what eventually led to the three of you sharing a small, barely three-bedroom house in a neighborhood at the foot of the mountain. 

You look up from your phone when you notice Kiba making a beeline to you. 

“How’d it go?” “What’d you get for Two-’A’?” you both ask at the same time.

You turn your phone off and slip it into your inside pocket as you stand up. “Something weird. Like, four hundred twenty-seven. It didn’t make much sense but I double checked it.”

He lets out a frustrated sigh and drags a hand through his hair, tugging hard at the ends. “Me, too,” he says, then continues, “what about the first one on the second page?”

“You had to use the central limit theorem, right?”

“I don’t know. Did you?” his voice is strained with mild emotion, “how d’you feel you did?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t understand most of it.” 

“Me neither,” he sighs, standing there, with his backpack slung over one shoulder. “And I studied,” he whispers and you feel like you’re both trapped, hyper aware of the public setting, of the people just behind Kiba, pretending to mind their own business, until he finally admits, “I… don’t know if I passed.” 

His words hit hard in your gut, and you make a sympathetic face at your feet. Sometimes, moments like these feel like mountains too big to summit. You’re pretty sure you at least passed. “I’m sorry,” you end up saying, “that sucks.”

“Yea.” He shifts slightly on his feet and without words, you know he’s asking for a hug, so you slip your arms around his waist, tucking yourself tight into his chest because you know, at the very least, how to do this. 

He exhales, and noticeably lets the tension held in his body slink away for now. “Sorry,” he whispers as you pull away, even though he really means ‘thank you’. Slightly uncomfortable under the attention, but wanting to persevere for him, you poke his stomach, knowing he’ll shy away with a reflexive puff and smile. 

“It’s nothing.” You awkwardly smile up at him before continuing with: “Now let’s get going. I’m hungry.” you pinch the sleeve of his jacket and tug him with you as you start walking towards the back stairs. 

Remembering the group chat, you ask: “Think you can make it up to the mountain this weekend?” 

You make it down the stairs, and he shrugs when you pull the door open at the bottom. “I’m not working.” He walks through, then grabs the outside door for you.

You let out a heavy sigh at the thought of work, of him working. You’ve got a pretty solid job at a department store on the other side of town, but this quarter Kiba started working as a server in a restaurant downtown and he’s too nice to say enough’s enough when they start piling the hours on his schedule. You step through the door and the chilled wind hits your face. “Ignore it if they call you, Kiba. You deserve days off.” 

“I know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Is everyone still going?” 

“Yea.”

It’s still early enough in the morning for the ground to be covered in patchy ice, and the snow that hadn’t melted during the sudden warm spell is packed and lumped along the edges of the concrete pathways. 

The grass is dead and buried along the walkway, and clumps of snow hang to the branches of trees, weighing them down like christmas ornaments. You walk side by side with Kiba towards the parking lot, in between the different halls until you reach the main courtyard. There, in the open area, you can finally see the mountains, including the ski runs operated by the parks service. 

It’s not expected to snow again until next weekend, but the storms have been pretty steady up until the sudden warm spell that’s melted most of it off. It just means that with the sunshine, you might get away with just a sweatshirt up on the mountain. The snow will be slow and slush, but that doesn’t make for a bad day, not that any day spent skiing is a bad day. 

Besides, you think spring skiing might be the best kind of skiing. The slopes start emptying as everyone loses their winter fever, or forgets that the tows are still running, and so the few who make the pilgrimage up the mountain every weekend are rewarded with wide open slopes and pale, pale blue skies. 

You pause to stare. “Check out how white it is.” 

Kiba turns and stops with you. “Mom said they got at least a couple feet packed on this last storm.” 

“Yea. They did.” You turn to kiba. “It’ll be good,” you say, and his face gentles. 

He reaches an arm around your shoulders and pulls you into his side. “You’re an addict.” 

He steers you towards his car, and you let your head rest on his shoulder, chin tilted up so you can see his face. “Yea? Well… Whatever. it’s fun.” 

“Mhhmm.” 

“You like it, too.”

The sky is a crisp, etheral blue. His car is rust red. He lifts his arm off your shoulder when you break off to make your way to the passenger side door, and you can’t help but think again of your statistics final. 

He circles ‘round to the driver’s side, but pauses in front of the door. He’s got this far-off look in his eyes as he tilts his head back and lets out a pent-up breath. You feel the anxiety, too. Sometimes, you think neither of you are really sure what you’re doing anymore, if you’re happy, but then he shakes his head and smiles at you. “You’re right. I do like it.”

Kiba unlocks his door, swings it open, then leans over the passenger seat to unlock yours. You sling your pack into the footspace in front of the passenger seat, and dodge Kiba’s bag as he tosses it into the back.

He starts the car, switches gears into reverse, and then pulls out into the parking lot. The car jerks as he shifts into first, and then you’re puttering along the front of the college before you turn off onto the street proper. Before you know it, you’re driving along the river on a sun-dried highway with snow piled over the guard railing.

You’re in a rush to get away. 

You were in such a rush to get away, to distance yourself from highschool that two years went by before your parents finally convinced you to start taking classes at the community college, and now you’re here, in love, unsure of the future, with grades you could be more happy about, and a lingering anxiety that’s sunk so deep in your flesh, you’re afraid it might be built in.

You look from the river, to the mountains, and then to Kiba, and let out a stubborn sigh. It’s all too annoying to think about anyways.

***

“Kiba, I want to see the killer whales,” You try and crane your neck to catch a glimpse of the wildlife documentary playing on the tv, but his steady hand at the base of your skull keeps your head ducked down on his shoulder; and the arm wrapped around your torso keeps you straddling his lap, facing the back of the couch. He hums acknowledgement but doesn’t move. 

He’s just sort of, mouthing at your neck, leaving heavy, open-mouthed kisses on your bare skin. It’s something he does often, and it works out for both of you because he likes using his mouth and you like his calming, intense presence when he gets like this - but right now, you’re more interested in the family dynamics of an orca pod dancing in Puget Sound than you are in letting him tease your neck raw. “Kiba,”

“Hmm,” he hums louder, with more purpose, and then he pushes you up with both hands on waist so you’re standing, and pushes you to lie lengthwise across the couch. He climbs in between your legs, then drags you by ankles so your hips are pressed snug and ducks down to resume laying kisses on the other side of your neck, hands feeling up your sides before dragging down the zipper of your sweater and moving on to your collar bones. In this position, you can watch sideways as the orcas bump noses. 

The narrator quiets for a moment, then the music picks up as a seal stumbles across the pod. Your mouth parts as Kiba sucks on your skin a little stronger than before. You drag your hand up his arm and under his short sleeve, fingertips digging into the bare skin of his shoulder, nails coming out in response to his teeth scraping on your shoulder. 

When he moves to another part of your neck, the space he leaves unoccupied grows cold in the air.

Akamaru barks at the back door. Kiba hums, and turns your chin towards him. He leaves a sloppy kiss half on your lips, half on your cheek, amorous and slow. 

Everyone’s out of the house for the day, and his empty home makes you think of your own. You’re long overdue a dinner, or even a call home, and the immobilizing anxiety rises in your chest the more you think of your parents until you manage refocus your attention on the weight pressing you into the couch and the gentle way Kiba handles you. And the fresh blanket of spring break is wrapped tight around the two of you as you plan to spend the rest of the day lounging.

Akamaru barks again. Kiba kisses you full on the lips, and you kiss back, then you push up against him with a shaky exhale. Quickly, you suck in a lung full of air and pull away to make some space between you. “Kiba,” you murmur, but it’s hard to get a clear mind because all you can smell is him. 

His eyes are lidded and intent, and you lose yourself in them. You hum, lulled, and kiss him again, until Akamaru paws at the backdoor. “Kiba,” you mumble into his mouth because you can’t pull away from the kiss anymore, “your dog wants you.” 

He backs off, but not far enough to be removed from your personal space, and makes up for the lack of kissing by languidly feeling the dip in your side through your shirt. “What’d you say?” When he talks, his lips brush your chin. They’re soft and slick.

His hand is like a heater through your shirt, and his firm touch makes you want to close your eyes. Fuck, he feels good. You smile at the knowledge of how smitten you are with him. “Kiba,” you repeat, this time with a little laugh, “your dog wants you.”

“Don’t care,” he says before catching your bottom lip between his teeth and pulling, then licking his way into your mouth. It’s gross, slobbery and enticing. 

Akamaru barks twice, growing tired of being left outside. You push Kiba up by the chest, but he curls around your hand, sealing his lips firmly over yours. You let out a sound somewhere between approval and annoyance, and in retaliation to his insistence, you slide your hand down and dig your fingers into his armpits.

He predictably jerks sideways, your lips coming apart with a pop and a high-pitched huff from him that makes you grin. He’s sitting back on his heels over you, pouting, and Akamaru barks and you laugh at his distressed, red face, then sit up and wrap your arms around his middle, pressing short kisses to under his jaw and down his neck in apology. He succeeds in pretending to still be upset until you lunge forward and blow a raspberry on his shoulder. 

He jerks again in surprise, and lets out a loud laugh before shoving you off him. You both fall back onto opposite arms of the couch, red-faced and happy. “Let’s go for a walk with Akamaru,” you offer. 

“Yea, okay,” he nods then pounces on you, holding your hands to his chest as he nibbles quickly down your neck, ignoring your laughing and squirming. Then he pulls you both up to stand. “It’s a nice day, anyways. We should be outside.” 

He hops over the couch and makes his way through the kitchen to the backdoor. You try and find where you threw your jacket - it’s over the recliner, next to your backpack.

You hear the sound of the back door opening, and then nails scampering across hardwood as Akamaru comes running into the living room. He intercepts you on your way to grab your jacket. 

“Hi, hi, hi,” you bend down on one knee to pet his scruff, “How are you?” He makes a series of loud, happy sniffing noises, as he nudges you all over with his nose, tail whipping back and forth. There’s snow on his snout, and his fur is damp around his ankles and face but you pet him anyways, skillfully dodging his wet tongue as it comes out to lick your cheek.

He hears the jingle of Kiba pulling his leash off the hooks by the door and leaps over the couch to go sprinting towards his favourite person. You watch with a smile, then pat your knees and stand up. You trail after Akamaru, and join them at the front door. 

“Wanna walk around by the creek?” Kiba asks, shoving his feet into his mom’s snow boots, and you sit down on the floor with your jacket in your lap and pull your own boots on. 

“Yea, sure.” 

While he’s busy fiddling with Akamaru’s harness, you rummage around the mud room for a tennis ball and the bright orange scoop launcher. When you find them, you stand, watching Kiba as he bends over to look for something in the pile of shoes by the door, then grow bored and pull his hat down over his eyes. 

“Hey!” he yanks it off and swats at you, but you’re already throwing the door open and bounding down the front steps. Akamaru bolts after you, and Kiba snorts, then steps onto the porch, and shuts and locks the door behind him.

***

But lazy days end, and give way to twilight quickly when winter and spring melt together.

During the early afternoon, a full blanket of clouds moved in, and drank up the yellow sunlight, dispersing it, white and even, across the sky. By the time the stars were out, the cloud cover was still without breaks, and so after sunset, the sky became stuck as an eerie lilac. 

Now, farther east along the river, it turns into a shallow pink as it approaches the mouth of the gorge and the city seated on the bank, awake and asleep all at once. 

The sparse street lamps and street lights reflect on the snow pushed to the side by the plows, and you are awake and asleep all at once. For a day so short, it felt stretched, and now you’re ready to shut yourself in your room and stare at a wall until you can’t anymore. Maybe it’s the stress and the reality of the situation finally catching up to you. You feel bad because you love Kiba, and you don’t understand why being with him doesn’t always make you feel better because you feel like it should, but it doesn’t. The tight expression on his face puts you too on edge as you suddenly remember the way your day started off, but you look at his side profile and think that he’s beautiful anyways.

Akamaru stretches and yawns in the backseat. Your phone rings. It’s your mom. You stare for a second, dull fear spiking.

Kiba catches on to your sudden mood-shift and glances at your phone. You know he has opinions on your relationship with your parents - but he can’t because you don’t understand a lot of things about him, and this is one of the things he doesn’t understand about you because even though he doesn’t know his dad, he’s got a mom who’s enough to make up for two. 

“What time are we leaving in the morning?” he asks to change the subject.

“A little later for Hinata, so probably around ten.” 

“Okay.”

His headlights flash as he hits the odd patch job on the road, and then he turns onto your street. After a minute more, he pulls into your driveway and puts the car in park. 

“It’s going to be okay.” “I love you.” You both say at the same time. 

You share a quiet, embarrassed laugh, and he reaches over to tuck his hand behind your head and presses a kiss to your lips. 

“I love you, too,” you tell him.

“I know.” 

Outside the car is cold, but you stay warm even as you stand outside to watch him pull away. Some things are too confusing, but what you feel in your chest at this moment as his headlights disappear around the corner is not.

*** 

Kiba’s little sedan is packed on the commute up the mountain. Tenten complained about having the longest legs (she definitely doesn’t), and won the passenger seat. Lee and Hinata, too polite to argue, and you, technically not considered a guest in Kiba’s car, are thigh-to-thigh in the backseat, with the bundle of skis and snowboards between your heads, resting on the middle console, threatening the gear change. Kiba is driving.

The road up the mountain is winding and full of hair-pin curves, but the car rolls along at a mostly steady speed as Kiba keeps a safe following distance behind the baby blue van puttering along in front of him. Everything comes to a sudden stop as you make it to the line of cars waiting at the park entrance, and Lee loses hold of a ski pole. 

“Shit! Lee!” You dodge the pole that was on its way to gouge your eyes out by throwing yourself across Hinata’s lap. Hinata squeaks, knees jerking up in surprise, and throws her arms over your head to protect you. 

“I am so sorry!” Lee exclaims, reaching an arm over the skis to grab the pole, but his sleeve gets caught on a brake, making the whole bundle jerk again. 

“It’s fine! It’s fine! Stop moving!” You shout and when you move to grab the bundle, Hinata raises her arms to release you. Torso twisted at a weird angle, you try to gather the dropped poles and push them up to rest near your shoulder again, and then you let out a breath and sit back into your seat. Then you start snickering. 

“This is stupid,” you say.

Kiba shakes his head. “You were the one who insisted we go.” 

It’s a new day, and last night feels so distant already. Like an untouchable memory. You can read the subtitles, but it doesn’t have sound.

“It’s all a part of the fun,” you insist, and Tenten starts laughing too, then. 

Lee asks Tenten to aim her vent more towards the back, and the car starts moving up the line.

With only a couple runs and a relatively remote location, the local ski spot isn’t very popular with tourists, so the parking lot is small and filled with cars you recognize from around town. You and Tenten start pulling the skis out of the car while the rest of the group goes and buys their lift tickets. The two of you’ve already got season passes. 

“Ski bum,” Kiba had affectionately referred to you when he caught you browsing for different speed waxes on the web.

Already in her snowboarding boots, Tenten saunters over the bluff of snow and sticks hers and Lee’s snowboards into it. You turn to watch Lee, Kiba and Hinata over at the ticket window, then set your ski boots heavily in front of you and sit down in the backseat sideways, so you’re facing out of the car. Feet not swollen yet, the ski boots come on without much struggle. You dip your toes in, then pull up hard on the tongue of the boot and your foot slides in. You crank yourself into the boots, then stand and revel in the feeling of being strapped in so snug, in the way the boots respond to your feet. 

By the time everyone’s returned to the car, you and Tenten are dancing on your toes chasing each other across the icy parking lot. She yanks her snowboard out of the snow and you toss your skis over your shoulder. “We’re gonna go ahead.” 

“Yea. Fine.” Kiba waves you off, then pulls his own gear out of his duffel and starts with rolling his snowpants up to pull his boots on.

Hinata gives you a friendly wave and Lee jumps to pull on whatever he can as quickly as possible to join you without hesitation, eager as always. 

The two of you sprint up the short hill towards the bunny slope, and as soon as you’re on semi-level ground, you click into your skis, already done with walking in your stiff boots. Tenten keeps trekking, even after you skate past her with a friendly taunt.

You make sure your gloves are on right, then tuck your poles into an armpit and let the rope tow pull you off and up the mountain. You don’t wait halfway up because Tenten is only a couple seconds behind you, though you do stop once you hit the top. 

Tenten scrapes to a stop next to you, and you both spot the same streak of green recklessly sprinting towards the tow. Without comment, the two of you pause to wait for Lee. Tenten flops down to sit perpendicular to the slope to further tighten her boots, and you can’t help but feel jealous of a snowboarder’s range of motion. A harsh gust of wind pulls at your clothes, but you were careful to keep the tails of your scarf tucked tight into your bib and so everything stays put. You stick your poles into the snow and wiggle back and forth impatiently.

Tenten sighs loudly, then tugs her mittens back on before sitting back against the drift. In front, the run slopes downwards, and you can see all the skiers making their way down the short blue square, the kids tucking in deep with their poles sticking out of their armpits like speed-demons, the rats hitting the jumps, and then farther on, past the run is the rest of the mountain range, blue and white and infinite. It calls to you.

“This is all that matters,” Tenten utters as she watches Lee tuck over the rope tow and the people, down in the parking lot, eating breakfast out of their cars. She tips her head back and squints happily at you, “I’m so glad the semester’s over. I didn’t think I’d survive midterms.” 

You give a muffled laugh. “I know. It’s like you can’t help but stress, even though your brain knows you shouldn’t really care as much as you do.” 

Lee hits the top of the run, launches himself off the tow, then lets out a whoop and doesn’t stop before pointing the nose of his board downhill and proceeds to barrel towards the park. 

“Hey!” Tenten shouts before hopping up and following him. You laugh, then dig your poles into the slight layer of slush on the packed snow, and push yourself forwards. 

You ski parallel to Tenten as she makes her way through the park, and you resolve to ditch your poles once you reach the queue because if you’re not hitting the longer runs, then you might as well skip the extra annoyance of carrying them up the tow. 

Tenten hits a jump, soaring through the air, and salutes you. You give a whoop back, raising your fist, then carving right. 

You spy Kiba and Hinata pushing themselves along towards the second rope tow, slipping on the slight incline. 

“Hey!” You shout, barreling towards them without slowing as they reach the flat snow around the bottom of the tow. 

They both wave, and then Kiba pales as you continue to fly towards him. 

“Stop!” he shouts, and you laugh as he starts to try and turn, but you’re too quick. Careful to slot your skis between his, you drag your poles between your skis to slow yourself down slightly before you quit the superficial attempt and open your arms wide. “No! No! No! (Y/N)!” 

You laugh and Kiba throws his poles and then you hit his chest, forcing a loud ‘oof’ out of both of you. You wrap your arms around him, poles clinking behind his back and your momentum forces him to slide backwards a couple meters. He wobbles, a ski lifts off the snow, but steadies himself by leaning his weight onto you and grappling with your jacket because you’re planted and steady on the snow, always. 

You grin up at him, feeling the happiness bloom hot in your chest, like shot of liquor. He doesn’t have his scarf or goggles on his face yet, so you can see his bare expression of exasperation as he reaches up to palm your covered face. And you can see the adoration plain on his face as he says: “I hate you.”

The smile he pulls out of you in this moment doesn’t leave your face for the rest of the day. You yank your scarf down below your chin and grin up at him. “Hit the poma with me?” you ask. 

“Sure. sounds fun.” he says, and so you help him pick up his poles, then you both catch up with Hinata to see if she’d like to go as well. Kiba reaches her first.

You remember staring at the mountain through the window of your statistics classroom, and shake your head at how silly it all seems now. This is all that matters. And so you ski so fast that the stress from midterms and the weight of the last semester can’t possibly catch up.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just really excited for Mt Bachelor to open up guys.


End file.
